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Transcript of Enhancing your online reputation

Next stepsThe social media / research landscapeEnhancing your online reputationResearchers come up with theories, ideas, concepts and conclusions - Social Media can help these ideas spread and increase their impact.Blogs and bloggingTwitterTwitter is a short-form blogging platform which allows users to exchange public messages of 140 characters or less, known as Tweets. Tweets can be entirely text-based or they can contain multimedia such as images or video, and links to anything online.

It's easy to set an account at www.twitter.com and begin tweeting right away, via:

Your tweets are seen by other Twitter users who follow you; you see the tweets of users you follow. You can quickly build up a network of peers with shared interests. There are around half a billion Twitter users worldwide.Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, & Academia.eduSlideshareThe great underrated social media platform!

Hosts slides in such a way as to make them very shareable

Visual medium, great for giving a taster of ideas

REACH!Social Media tools for researchersFind more information about this presentation, and the hand-out which goes with it, on the 'Becoming a networked researcher' page of http://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/researchWhat?Why?How?Tips, pitfalls, best practice etcOfficial definition: Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order.

Relevant definition: Blogs are frequently updated webpages which are easy to edit and to share, to which people can subscribe so they get regular updates, and upon which people can comment and engage with the author(s) and other readers.Blogs can be written individually or jointly, and can contain text, video, graphics etc.

They began as personal (web) logs and as such they have usually a more direct and colloquial style, which has endured even with formal, academic, or group blogs.Blogging takes place on a number of free platforms - the most popular are Wordpress and Blogger - which provide in-built statistics. You can see how many people have read your posts and how widely they have been shared.Blogs CAN be all about impact.

It allows you to build links and relationships even when tied to your desk.A York blog:As seen from the author's point of view:Links to our main websitesOptions to subscribeContextual informationEmbedded videoThe blog post itselfBasic word processorTags to aid discoverabilityDescription for GoogleThis blog is made with Blogger software - anyone with a Google Mail account automatically gets a blog to use if they choose to.

IT Services can give your blog a namehereblog.york.ac.uk URL.Hands-on1. Go to http://www.blogger.com and sign in with your University email address and password.

2. Click 'New blog'

3. Put in any title for now - you can edit or delete this blog later.

4. For address, the only thing you need to worry about for now is finding one that isn't already taken. You can change this later.

5. Any template will do. Follow the guide in the handout.Potentially useful, but not necessarily essential...FacebookGoogle+LinkedInAcademia.eduSocial media provides reach...Social media provides engagement...Social media allows for dialogue and conversation, which makes people more likely to engage and make meaningful connections with their own interestsHuge potential reach (over a billion active users, including over half the UK population)

Get your posts 'liked' by your friends and they start appearing in the newsfeeds of their network - things can go viral

But... privacy laws change all the time, they want to make money out of you if they can, and it's still primarily a social space.The curse of personalistation...Potential benefits of compartmentalisation!On the upside:Easy to get on as you already have a Google accountCircles may be usefulHangouts allow video communication with multiple usersGreat place to toss around ideas, or work collaboratively (for example on a grant application) without having to use email all the timeOn the downside:Personalisation and the filter bubbleGaining traction all the time but still not a critical mass of people using itThe professional network, mainly aimed at showcasing your CV.

But you can connect with like-minded researchers, you can join groups and discussion forums around specific themes - it's an excellent tool for building a network, but perhaps not ideal for disseminating or conducting research. Plus it has an SEO deal with the devil!Wants to be a sort of Academic Facebook... but it doesn't have to be to be useful!Research groupsPapers and articlesPluses:Keep up to dateContact authorsSearch Engine rankingsOne step at a time - do one thing properly, see how it goes, then expand if you want to,

Have a look at the 'Becoming a Networked Researcher' tab of http://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/researchfor a guide to Twitter for Research (coming mid-Jan...).

Perhaps start a Twitter account, build up a network, then introduce a blog in a few months time and link the two together.'Features' presentations across different sectors:How else can you reach so many people?

Sand dunes picture via Flickr Creative Commons, by Edgar Baranay: original at http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgarbarany/2886320940/sizes/z/in/photostream/Email me at ned.potter@york.ac.uk Follow the Library on Twitter @uoyLibrary!Find the digital learning blog athttp://digitallearningblog.york.ac.ukIt's easy to blog into a vacuum... To avoid this:

Make it as easy as possible for people to subscribe and to shareIt's also an easy and effective way to positively influence your online reputation (and your reputation, online).

People ARE Googling you - a blog is a great platform for them to find, reflecting your views and findings.Blogs are also a great 'HQ' for your social media activities. As you increase your online presence and add more platforms, the blog acts as a hub to tie them all together, with interlinking between them all.Twitter is a conversation.

It is a brilliant, brilliant networking tool. It's great for connecting with useful people, finding shared research interests, keeping in touch with new contacts, disseminating findings, polling your peers.

On Twitter the information comes to you, and allows you to keep up with new ideas and developments in your field.

You can talk to people in real time or they can pick up tweets later.

It's like the really useful bits in conference *between presentations*, but all the time...

Twitter is a fantastic funnel for all your other social media presences (when you get them).You set up a profile with a picture, a short bio, and a link back to your departmental page (or blog, etc).

Tweets are seen by those who follow you or those who click on your profile.

@ replies are seen specifically by those at whom they are directed.

ReTweets (RTs) are essentially quoting other tweets, with attribution. It's a way for your followers to see tweets they might not otherwise see, or for others to share YOUR tweets with their networks.

An MT is a Modified Tweet.

A hashtag (for example #altmetrics) is a way of bringing together several disparate Twitter users by topic, rather than by whether or not they follow each other. Hashtags can be searched even by non Twitter users.

A Direct Message (DM) can be sent to people who follow you.What? Why?Hands-onTips, pitfalls, best practice etcCommon errors: Asking for DMs, ignoring the1-in-4 rule, misunderstanding the

@reply rather than .@reply.

TWITTER IS A CONVERSATION! (Not a broadcast.)

The best way to build up a network is to be USEFUL. Rather than just sharing your own ideas, contribute to other peoples', post interesting questions, and try and give of yourself.Fad > partial acceptance > personal use (70%) > citing > increasingly vitalFirst lets look at a working example: https://twitter.com/mwellerGo to www.twitter.com to register, then follow the instructions in Part 2 of the guide. How?Ned PotterAcademic Liaison LibrarianAlways shifting: